Thursday, 7 January 2016

Quote of the Day: On grief, and joy

"In this culture we display a compulsive avoidance of difficult matters and an obsession with distraction. Because we cannot acknowledge our grief, we’re forced to stay on the surface of life. Poet Kahlil Gibran said, 'The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.' We experience little genuine joy in part because we avoid the depths. We are an ascension culture. We love rising, and we fear going down. Consequently we find ways to deny the reality of this rich but difficult territory, and we are thinned psychically. We live in what I call a 'flat-line culture,' where the band is narrow in terms of what we let ourselves fully feel. We may cry at a wedding or when we watch a movie, but the full-throated expression of emotion is off-limits. ...

"This life we have is incredibly short, but we’ve been blessed with it. When we shut off our grief, we forget that. To let grief work its alchemy on you yields gravitas, by which I mean the ability to be present with the bittersweet reality of life, which always includes loss. There’s no way to be spared sorrow. I wouldn’t even wish that upon someone. But we shouldn’t get stuck in our grief; it’s not a permanent address but a companion that walks beside us. Everything I love, I will lose. That’s the harsh truth. You either have to shut down your heart — and miss the love that is around you — or wrestle with that truth and come out the other end. There is indeed such a thing as joyful sorrow."

"I propose art instruction because only art educates the whole person as an integrated individual: it educates the senses, it educates the mind, and it educates the emotions. It educates the soul. ... pubescent youngsters in particular can learn to deal constructively with feelings often so strong they don’t know what to do with them; they can actually 'work them out' through the creation of their art. This doesn’t mean 'express yourself' wallowing nor does it mean psychotherapy. It means healthy emotional flowering. It means psychological growth. All art training nurtures this, but music is indispensable for guiding psychological development because it speaks directly to the sentient consciousness. One might say that music is emotions, because feelings are its primary themes. ... " The Fouth 'R' in Education: Reading, WRiting, ARithmetic and ARt - Alexandra York, A.R.T

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